More British women aborting their children over financial worries, say UK doctors

BY HILARY WHITE, 

ROME CORRESPONDENT.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/more-british-women-aborting-their-children-over-financial-worries-say-uk-do

LONDON, August 14, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A survey by a market research firm has found that the global economic crisis may be influencing more British women to abort their children. The research by Insight Research Group found that about one-fifth of GPs are reporting more women requesting abortion for financial concerns.

Seventeen percent of GPs surveyed felt there was an increase in patients who “were specifically requesting terminations due to financial concerns.” Fifty-four percent of those GPs said they believed the biggest increase was among women ages 26-35. Another twenty-three percent believed the biggest increase was among single women with no previous children, while twenty-one percent said they believed it was among single women living with a “partner” with 1 to 3 previous children.

Thirty-four percent of all the GPs surveyed said that they are seeing women putting off having children “until their financial security improved.”

The findings echo those of Russian demographers who fear that recent gains in the country’s abysmally low fertility rate will be lost as more women turn to abortion to ease financial worries http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/international-life-and-family-roundup1 . 

Although pro-life observers say that they have no argument with the study’s findings, they question the reaction of GPs who endorse abortion for financial reasons.

Anthony Ozimic, the communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said that for authority figures like doctors to affirm with their actions that an abortion is an acceptable solution to financial anxiety sends a profoundly negative message to the culture at large.

“Whatever the merits or otherwise of this study, Western society will continue in its moral and demographic declines as long as the message goes out that women should abort their children or significantly postpone conceiving because of financial concerns,” Ozimic said.

The UK should follow the lead of other EU countries who are offering financial, tax and other incentives to increase the financial security of families and encourage couples to marry earlier and have children, Ozimic said. Instead, the myth is being promulgated that there is such a thing as a “perfect” economic condition in which to have children, when the reality is that such conditions will not exist while the European fertility rate continues to decline.

“While prudence in planning a family is necessary, optimal economic conditions for raising children are illusory.”

Ozimic confirmed that the law does not technically allow for abortions for financial or “social” reasons, but said that doctors have been granted enormous latitude in deciding what factors in a woman’s life constitute a threat to her “mental health”.

This is acknowledged even by the courts to be the case, despite voluminous research demonstrating that abortion has a serious, long-term negative impact on women’s mental health and increasing skepticism http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-study-says-pregnancy-is-safe-even-beneficial-for-women-recovering-from/  among the psychiatric community of the existence of any mental health benefits of abortion.

Abandon My Baby? No Way, Says Unwed Mum

Published by Free Malaysia Today, 20 August 2010. By Stephanie Sta Maria.

PETALING JAYA: September is set to be a bittersweet month for Dina*. The shy 20-year-old will be delivering her firstborn -- and then handing him over to his adoptive parents.

Dina's eyes turned misty as she contemplated this not-so-distant future. She is already besotted with her unborn son but raising him is out of the question for she is an unwed mother.

“I was raped by a family friend old enough to be my father,” she said softly. “When I found out I was pregnant, it was too late for an abortion. My father cried when I told him and it was a long time before my mother could look me in the eye.”

Despite offering emotional support, her parents struggled to conceal their pain and Dina eventually moved out. Her anxious search for refuge led her to OrphanCARE, a non-profit organisation that finds homes for orphans and abandoned babies.

The organisation works closely with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development and the Welfare Department and has found homes for 14 babies since its launch last April. Dina, however, is its first live-in unwed mother.

“Housing unwed mothers is not one of our services because of space and financial constraints,” explained its deputy president, Noraini Hashim (picture). “But we couldn't turn Dina away. Not when she wanted to take care of a baby that she could have easily abandoned.”

Noraini's words ring truer today than ever before.

Baby dumping, which has long been among the social ills in Malaysia, is finally having its turn in the spotlight and is dubbed the latest “phenomenon” to arrest the attention of politicians, social workers and the media.

Deep compassion

According to the Federal CID director commissioner Mohd Bakri Zinin, the number of cases has risen to 472 since 2005, which makes the probability of Dina's son being another statistic frighteningly high. Until you consider that Dina herself isn't interested in being a statistic.

“I used to curse my baby for ruining my life,” she admitted, placing a gentle hand on her rounded belly. “But abandoning him never crossed my mind. How can I when a part of me lives in him? I've grown to love him and I would keep him if I could give him the life that he deserves.”

But Dina is far from taking a holier-than-thou stance. She's fully aware that her situation would be very different had she been rejected by her family and OrphanCARE. And this has left her with a deep compassion for unwed mothers who abandoned their babies.

“They must have faced terrible circumstances to be driven to do that,” she emphatised. “No mother would carry her child for nine months and then willingly abandon it. These mothers would have had no other choice.”

Noraini agreed. In many situations, she said, that choice fell into the hands of the father or a male family member and was made easier when the new mothers were too exhausted or terrified to fight for their baby's life.

“In one case, the father snatched up the newborn, stuffed it in a plastic bag and threw it into a river,” she recalled. “It is the fastest route to getting rid of the stigma and responsibility. Having said that, we've also met many young fathers who accompany the mothers to hand their baby over to us. These are the people who give us hope.”

Baby hatch still unused

OrphanCARE also introduced the country's first baby hatch in May this year in a move to reduce the number of abandoned babies. The office is a house tucked in the corner of a quiet street in a residential area that shield unwed mothers and couples from curious eyes.

The hatch is a vault-like structure built into the house exterior. Inside is a makeshift cot, a night light, an air-conditioning unit and a CCTV which is trained only on the baby. When a baby is placed into the hatch and the door is shut, an alarm is triggered in the caretaker's room.

After checking the CCTV to ensure that it isn't a prank, the caretaker allows the parents time to leave the premises before collecting the baby from the hatch. The baby is then matched with one of the 300 couples who have registered with OrphanCARE to be adoptive parents.

The attraction of a baby hatch is the anonymity it guarantees but to Noraini's surprise, the babies continue to be brought in by their parents.

“Like Dina said, given a choice, these mothers don't want to abandon their babies,” Noraini said. “But they don't want to face being judged any further either. So we're glad that they view us as a neutral party to which they can entrust their baby's welfare.”

Dina can vouch for that. She has found a safe haven in OrphanCARE and implicitly trusts that it will fulfil her hopes for her son. When asked what hopes she harbours for herself, she hesitated and then replied that she simply wanted to move on.

“I will never forget my baby but he will belong to someone else. So I have to continue with life. I don't know if I will ever marry because I'm afraid of men now.”

“But if I do meet someone, I won't tell him about my past. Regardless of the circumstances, being an unwed mother is a stigma that can never be erased. The only solace I cling to is that I did the right thing for my son.”

*Name has been changed to protect identity.

Don’t Neglect Youths’ Emotional Needs; Don't Spoil Them Either

Star Online, Monday April 27, 2009

PETALING JAYA: Emotional development in young people is being neglected in today’s fast-paced Malaysian society, say experts.

The emotional needs of the young are often overlooked as both parents work to fulfil their children’s material and educational needs, says Inte-grated Psychology Network Sdn Bhd’s consultant psychologist Valerie Jaques.

“As such, more young people are starving for attention and end up confusing sex with love,” she said.

Jaques said that youths, especially girls, were not taught to speak up.

“Many girls are not taught to be assertive and say no or to complain about those who have taken advantage of them,” she said.

Among the ways to deal with this, she said, was for parents to attend parenting courses and learn how to communicate with a child.

Women’s Aid Organisation executive director Ivy Josiah said the authorities and parents needed to acknowledge that young people were getting more curious about sex at an earlier age now.

“More young people are exploring and experimenting,” she said.

Josiah said there was an urgent need for formal sex education in schools as it was the only way to ensure that teenagers treated sex responsibly and knew the consequences of their actions.

These young people, she said, should have the chance to express themselves and speak to someone other than their parents about concepts they were unfamiliar with like sex and relationships.

“They are coping with raging hormones, they have the need to be loved and to learn what having a relationship means,” she said.

She also warned that it was too simplistic to think that children whose parents were both working would be more inclined to be involved in underage sex.

Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Senator Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun said there were many reasons why young girls got involved in underage sex.

“Each individual has her own unique story, background and experience,” she said.